October 03, 2002

Blair's speech calling for Israel to return to the 1967 boundaries is all the more ironic in light of the fact that it was Lord Caradon, envoy of Mr. Blair's own Labor Party, who drafted Security Council Resolution 242 which specifically did not require such a move. Caradon explained later, "It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967, because those positions were undesirable and artificial."

The Jewish connection to Jerusalem goes back 3,000 years. Israel has administered the city since 1967 in a way that has allowed free access to holy sites to people of all faiths. This stands in marked contrast to the last time the Arabs held the city, from 1948 to 1967, during which time synagogues were leveled and Jewish tombstones were used for Jordanian army latrines.

The American Congress has overwhelmingly and repeatedly recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and recognized the need to maintain it as an undivided city. This is enshrined in the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995.

While a presidential waiver applies to the financial penalties for not moving the American embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, the requirement to move the embassy and the policy on Jerusalem as Israel's capital are not subject to waiver.

Dividing a free and democratic country's capital and handing half of it to the terrorists is no way for a great nation like America to treat its friends or to do anything other than whet the appetite of the terrorists whose defeat we seek.